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    Critical Sociology

    http://crs.sagepub.com/content/35/6/785The online version of this article can be found at:

    DOI: 10.1177/0896920509343068

    2009 35: 785Crit SociolBerch Berberoglu

    The Class Nature of Globalization in the Age of Imperialism

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    The Class Nature of Globalization in the Age of Imperialism

    Berch BerberogluUniversity of Nevada, Reno, USA

    Abstract

    This article examines the relationship between globalization and imperialism, the dynamics,

    contradictions, and crisis of global capitalism, and its political-military arm the imperial state,

    the developing and maturing class struggle, and the prospects for social change and transforma-

    tion of global capitalism. It examines these within the context of the globalization of capital in

    the 20th century and draws out the political implications of this process for the future course of

    capitalist development on a world scale. The article drives home the point that contemporary

    neoliberal globalization is in fact an advanced stage of capitalist imperialism, and that the con-

    tradictions of 21st century globalization are thus a projection of the contradictions of capitalism

    on a global scale, with all its inherent exploitative characteristics and conflicts that will lead to

    the revolutionary transformation of capitalist society.

    Keywords

    class struggle, crisis, globalization, imperialism, social transformation

    Introduction

    There has been a proliferation of literature on globalization and the political economy ofglobal capitalism over the course of the past two decades. Few of these works, however,

    have attempted to link this process to imperialism or the expansive, predatory practices ofadvanced capitalism operating on a global scale. Fewer still have focused on the exploita-tive nature of this process and its destructive course of development that necessitates itstransformation. And fewer yet have identified the working class as the leading agent ofchange and transformation of global capitalism as we move forward in the 21st century.

    My recent book, Globalization and Change: The Transformation of Global Capitalism,published in 2005, attempted to fill this gap in globalization studies by highlightingthe nature, dynamics, and contradictions of neoliberal globalization as the highest stage

    Critical Sociology35(6) 785-800

    Copyright The Author(s), 2009. Reprints and Permissions: DOI: 10.1177/0896920509343068

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    786 Critical Sociology35(6)

    of capitalist imperialism, and sought to convey the underlying fault lines of this processworldwide in order to assist those who are struggling to change it (Berberoglu, 2005).It thus attempted to provide an analysis and a road map to trace global capitalisms courseof development and to understand the political work that is necessary to bring aboutits transformation.

    Acknowledging James Petrass immense influence on my thinking about neoliberalglobalization, class struggle, and revolution in the age of capitalist imperialism, anddedicating this book to him, I wrote in its Preface:

    I would especially like to thank James Petras for his inspiring work on imperialism, class

    struggle, and revolution, as well as his keen understanding of the class nature of the

    globalization process and its contradictions, which he has conveyed in many of his books

    over the years, especially in such pioneering work as his Critical Perspectives on Imperialism

    and Social Class in the Third World, as well as Class, State, and Power in the Third World,[1981] and his path-breaking recent work on globalization, with Henry Veltmeyer,

    Globalization Unmasked: Imperialism in the Twentieth Century, published in 2001. For his

    tireless lifelong dedication to the struggle against imperialism and global capitalism that

    has spanned a successful academic career for more than three decades, one that is being

    emulated by a new generation of revolutionary intellectuals who are carrying on the

    struggle for a just world, this book is dedicated to my mentor, teacher and friend James

    Petras. (Berberoglu, 2005: x)

    As a revolutionary intellectual true to his principles, James Petras has succeeded in

    moving the discussion and debate over globalization along class lines, and doing so witha keen understanding of the dynamics and contradictions of capitalism on a world scaleand its development into capitalist imperialism through the so-called neoliberal global-ization process (Petras, 1998, 2007; Petras and Veltmeyer, 2003, 2007).

    Globalization and Change: The Transformation of Global Capitalism was the third in aseries of a multi-year, multi-level project that I launched a few years ago with the publi-cation in 2002 of a book that I edited titled Labor and Capital in the Age of Globalization,

    which presented a series of case studies on the labor process and labor-capital relations atthe point of production under advanced, global capitalism (Berberoglu, 2002).Following this, I published in 2003 a second book that I wrote, titled Globalization of

    Capital and the Nation-State: Imperialism, Class Struggle, and the State in the Age of GlobalCapitalism, to expose the nature and contradictions of neoliberal globalization, tracingthe evolution of capitalism and the capitalist state through its various stages leading to theglobalization of capital and capitalist imperialism that the transnational corporations andthe imperial state came to represent in this latest and highest stage of capitalist develop-ment at the end of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st centuries (Berberoglu, 2003).

    Culminating as the third book in the series, Globalization and Changecomplementedthe previous two volumes by moving from an analysis of capitalism as a system of pro-duction to its class essence and political character in the form of the capitalist state, to itsglobal manifestations through imperialist expansion and domination under the rule of

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    Berberoglu: The Class Nature of Globalization in the Age of Imperialism 787

    the transnationals and the imperial state, and to the class struggles that are the outcomeof this process and are the basis of the struggle against capitalist globalization and trans-formation of the global capitalist system (Berberoglu, 2005).

    Neoliberal globalization, which some have argued represents a qualitative change inthe development of capitalism, has been effectively shown by Petras and his colleagues,in particular Henry Veltmeyer, as a continuation of the process of transnational capitalistexpansion and domination of rival and subordinate states for purposes of plunder basedon the exploitation and oppression of the working class and other classes under thedictates of capital and the capitalist state on a global scale (Petras and Veltmeyer, 2001,2003, 2007). It is within the framework of this understanding of class relations across the

    world that Petras has made a major and lasting contribution to the analysis of the globalpolitical economy, its contradictions and sources of its eventual transformation.

    In this essay, I examine the relationship between globalization and imperialism, the

    dynamics, contradictions, and crisis of global capitalism, and its political-military armthe imperial state, the developing and maturing class struggle, and the prospects for socialchange and transformation of global capitalism. I examine these within the context of theglobalization of capital in the 20th century and map out the political implications of thisprocess for the future course of capitalist development on a world scale.

    Globalization and Imperialism

    Imperialism is the highest stage of capitalism operating on a world scale, and neoliberal

    globalization is the highest stage of imperialism that has penetrated every corner of theworld. Both are an outgrowth of 20th-century monopoly capitalism an inevitable con-sequence, or manifestation, of monopoly capital that now dominates the world capitalistpolitical economy. Thus, the current wave of globalization is an extension of this processthat operates at a more advanced and accelerated level.

    A central feature of this current phase of transnational capitalism, besides its speed andintensity, is the increased privatization of various spheres of the economy and society.Under the current wave of globalization, this has especially been the case in areas such ascommunications, information technology, education, and the cultural sphere, whereprivatization is becoming increasingly prevalent.

    The rate at which these changes have been taking place, and the vigor with whichtransnational capital has been exercising more power vis--vis the state, has led some todeclare globalization a qualitatively new stage in the development of world capitalism(Ross and Trachte, 1990). However, I would argue, as does Petras (2008), that thesequantitative, surface manifestations of contemporary capitalism, no matter how perva-sive they are, do not change the fundamental nature of capitalism and capitalist rela-tions, nor the nature of the capitalist/imperialist state and the class contradictionsgenerated by these relations, which are inherent characteristics of the system itself. Theycannot change the nature of capitalism in any qualitative sense to warrant globaliza-tion a distinct status that these critics have come to assign as something fundamentally

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    different than what Marxist political economists have always argued to be the normaloperation and evolution of global capitalism in the age of imperialism (Beams, 1998;Foster, 2002; Harvey, 2003; Petras, 2008; Szymanski, 1981; Warren, 1980).

    Today, in the early 21st century, the dominant institution that has facilitated globalcapitalist expansion on behalf of the current center of world imperialism since the post-

    World War II period the United States of America is the transnational corporation. Asother capitalist rivals from Europe and the Pacific Basin have recently begun to emergeon the world scene as serious contenders for global economic power, they too have devel-oped and unleashed their own transnational corporate and financial institutions to carveout greater profits, accumulate greater wealth, and thereby dominate the global economy.The transnational corporations and banks, based in the leading centers of world capital-ism, have thus become the chief instruments of global capitalist expansion and cap-ital accumulation (Mittelman and Othman, 2002; Petras and Veltmeyer, 2007; Waters,

    1995; see also Barnet and Cavenagh, 1994). It is, therefore, in the export of capital andits expanded reproduction abroad to accumulate greater wealth for the capitalist classesof the advanced capitalist countries that one can find the motive force of imperialism andneoliberal globalization today.

    Neoliberal globalization, much as during earlier stages of capitalism, is driven by thelogic of profit for the private accumulation of capital based on the exploitation of laborthroughout the world. It is, in essence, the highest and most pervasive phase of transna-tional capitalism operating on a world scale. It is the most widespread and penetratingmanifestation of modern capitalist imperialism in the age of the internet a developmentthat signifies not only the most thorough economic domination of the world by the

    biggest capitalist monopolies, but also increasingly direct military intervention by thechief imperialist state to secure the global economic position of its own corporations.

    The relationship between the owners of the transnational corporations themonopoly capitalist class and the imperialist state and the role and functions of thisstate, including the use of military force to advance the interests of the monopoly cap-italist class, thus reveals the class nature of the imperialist state and the class logic ofimperialism and capitalist globalization (Berberoglu, 1987, 2003, 2005; Szymanski,1981; Warren, 1980). But this logic is more pervasive and is based on a more funda-mental class relation between labor and capital that now operates on a global level that is, a relation based on exploitation. Thus, in the age of neoliberal globalization

    (i.e. in the epoch of capitalist imperialism), social classes and class struggles are a pro-duct of the logic of the global capitalist system based on the exploitation of labor

    worldwide (Berberoglu, 1987, 1994, 2003, 2009; Gerstein, 1977; Petras, 1978).Capitalist expansion on a world scale at this stage of the globalization of capital and

    capitalist production has brought with it the globalization of the production process andthe exploitation of wage-labor on a world scale. With the intensified exploitation of the

    working class at super-low wages in repressive neocolonial societies throughout the ThirdWorld, the transnational corporations of the leading capitalist states have come to amassgreat fortunes that they have used to build up a global empire through the powers of theimperial state, which has not hesitated to use its military power to protect and advance

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    Berberoglu: The Class Nature of Globalization in the Age of Imperialism 789

    the interests of capital in every corner of the globe. It is in this context that we see thecoalescence of the interests of the global economy and empire as manifested in control ofcheap labor, new markets, and vital sources of raw materials, such as oil, and the inter-vention of the imperial state to protect these when their continued supply to the impe-rial center are threatened (Petras and Veltmeyer, 2001).

    Imperialism has been an enormous source of profit and wealth for the capitalist classof the advanced capitalist countries, who, through the mechanisms of the transnationalmonopolies and the imperial state, have accumulated great fortunes from the exploita-tion of labor on a world scale. Given the uneven development of capitalism, however,some countries have grown more rapidly than others, while some previously less devel-oped countries have emerged as new contenders in the global economy. The rivalrybetween the capitalist classes of the old and newly emergent capitalist states has turnedinto rivalry among the leading countries within the world capitalist system. This has led

    to intense competition and conflict between the rising capitalist powers and the decliningimperial centers on a world scale, hence leading to shifts in centers of global economicand political power.

    Focusing on the US experience, it is clear that in the post-World War II period theUnited States of America emerged as the dominant power in the capitalist world. In sub-sequent decades, US-controlled transnational production reached a decisive stage, necessi-tating the restructuring of the international division of labor, as the export of productivecapital brought about a shift in the nature and location of production: the expansion ofmanufacturing industry on an unprecedented scale into previously precapitalist,peripheral areas of the global capitalist economy. This marked a turning point in the

    rise of the US economy and the emergence of the United States of America as theleading capitalist/imperialist power in the world (Berberoglu, 2003).

    Although the large-scale US postwar global expansion ushered in a period of unques-tioned US supremacy over the world economy and polity during the 1950s and 1960s,the economic strength of US capital over foreign markets through investment, produc-tion, and trade during the 1970s took on a new significance one resulting from therestructuring of the international division of labor. US transnational capital, in line withits transfer of large segments of the production process to the periphery, poured massiveamounts of capital into select areas of the Third World, as well as into its traditional basesof foreign investment Canada and Western Europe and became the leading center of

    world capitalism in a new way (that is, by becoming the dominant force in the world- wide production process). Thus, not only did overall US direct investment expandimmensely during this period, but also a shift in the form of investment in favor of man-ufacturing came to constitute the new basis of changes in the international division oflabor with great impact on the national economies of both the periphery and the centerstates, including the United States of America. This process further fueled the contradic-tions and conflicts inherent in capitalist production and class relations on a global scale,including inter-imperialist rivalry between the chief capitalist states on the one hand andthe exploitation of labor on a global scale on the other, with all the consequences associ-ated with this process a process that has led to the crisis of global capitalism.

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    790 Critical Sociology35(6)

    Figure1Theoriginsanddeve

    lopmentofglobalcapitalisman

    dthecapitaliststatethroughitsvariousstages

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    Berberoglu: The Class Nature of Globalization in the Age of Imperialism 791

    Imperialism, the State, and the Crisis of Global Capitalism

    The global expansion of capital over the past 100 years has had varied effects on the econ-

    omy, state, and class relations on a world scale. Figure 1 outlines the origins and devel-opment of capitalism and the capitalist state through its various stages from its earlybeginnings to the modern global age. It shows that, as capitalism developed from its com-petitive to monopoly stage, it underwent a major transformation that elevated it from thenational to the global level. This was accompanied by a worldwide process of economicexpansion as the export of capital replaced the export of goods that was characteristic ofthe earlier stage of capitalist development. Monopoly rule over the global economy, facil-itated by the advanced capitalist state, set the stage for imperialism through the interna-tionalization of capital and capitalist relations across the world, and led to the consolidationof capitals grip over the world economy. This provided the political framework for the

    direct role of the advanced capitalist state in safeguarding the interests of capital and thecapitalist class around the world a role facilitated by the World Bank, the InternationalMonetary Fund, and the World Trade Organization global institutions designed toadvance the worldwide operations of the transnational corporations as the instrumentsof global capitalism (Kloby, 2003; Payer, 1974, 1982).

    The capitalist state, now controlled by the monopoly fraction of the capitalist class,thus came to serve the long-term interests of global capital and the global capitalist sys-tem through its political and military apparatus in service of the transnationals and thetransnational capitalist class (Sklair, 2001). Looking at neoliberal globalization in classterms, we see that a complex web of class relations has developed at the global level that

    is both complementary and contradictory. Thus while the capitalist classes of the domi-nant imperialist states cooperate in their collective exploitation of labor and plunder ofresources at the global level, the underlying contradictions of global competition andconflict among these classes lead at the same time to inter-imperialist rivalries and con-frontation around the world (Hart, 1992). Just as each imperialist power exploits its ownas well as its rivals working classes for global supremacy, so too one observes the poten-tial unity of the working classes of these rival imperialist states as workers come togetherin forging a protracted struggle against the entire global capitalist system. It is here thatthe capitalist/imperialist state comes to play a critical role in facilitating the exploitationof global labor by transnational capital, but in doing so also risks its demise through the

    unfolding contradictions of this very same process that it is increasingly unable to controland regulate (Berberoglu, 2003, 2005).

    The problems that the imperial state has come to tackle, at both the global andnational levels, are such that it is no longer able to manage its affairs with any degree ofcertainty. At the global level, the imperial state has been unable to deal with the conse-quences of ever-growing superexploitation of labor in Third World sweatshops that hasled to immense poverty and inequality worldwide; nor has it been able to take measuresto reverse the depletion of resources, environmental pollution and other health hazards,a growing national debt tying many countries to the World Bank, the International

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    Monetary Fund, and other global financial institutions, and a growing militarization ofsociety through the institution of brutal military and civilian dictatorships that violatebasic human rights. The domination and control of Third World countries for transna-tional profits through the instrumentality of the imperial state has at the same time cre-ated various forms of dependence on the center that has become a defining characteristicof neoliberal globalization and imperialism today (Amaladoss, 1999; Sklair, 2002).

    Domestically, the globalization of capital and imperialist expansion has causedimmense dislocations in the national economies of imperialist states. Expansion of man-ufacturing industry abroad has meant a decline in local industry, as plant closings in theUnited States of America and other advanced capitalist countries have worsened theunemployment situation. The massive expansion of capital abroad has resulted in hun-dreds of factory shutdowns with millions of workers losing their jobs, hence the surge inunemployment in the USA and other imperialist states (Phillips, 1998; Wagner, 2000).

    This has led to a decline in wages of workers in the advanced capitalist centers, as lowwages abroad have played a competitive role in keeping wages down in the imperialistheartlands. The drop in incomes among a growing section of the working class has thuslowered the standard of living in general and led to a further polarization between laborand capital (Berberoglu, 1992, 2002).

    The dialectics of global capitalist expansion, which has caused so much exploitation,oppression, and misery for the peoples of the world, both in the Third World and in theimperialist countries themselves, has in turn created the conditions for its own destruc-tion. Economically, it has afflicted the system with recessions, depressions, and an asso-ciated realization crisis; politically, it has set into motion an imperial interventionist state

    that through its presence in every corner of the world has incurred an enormous militaryexpenditure to maintain an empire, while gaining the resentment of millions of peopleacross the globe who are engaged in active struggle against it.1

    The imperial state, acting as the repressive arm of global capital and extending its ruleacross vast territories, has dwarfed the militaristic adventures of past empires many timesover. Moreover, through its political and military supremacy, it has come to exert its con-trol over many countries and facilitate the exploitation of labor on a world scale. As aresult, it has reinforced the domination of capital over labor and its rule on behalf of cap-ital. This, in turn, has greatly politicized the struggle between labor and capital and calledfor the recognition of the importance of political organization that many find necessary

    to effect change in order to transform the capitalist-imperialist system.The global domination of capital and the advanced capitalist/imperial state during the

    20th century did not proceed without a fight, as a protracted struggle of the workingclass against capital and the capitalist state unfolded throughout this period of capitalistglobalization. The labor movement, the anti-imperialist national liberation movements,and the civil rights, womens, student, environmental, anti-war, and peace movements allcontributed to the development of the emerging anti-globalization movement in the late20th and early 21st centuries. These and related contradictions of late-20th-centurycapitalist globalization led to the crisis of the imperial state and the entire globalization

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    project which increasingly came under attack by the mass movements of the global erathat came to challenge the rule of capital and the capitalist state throughout the world(Brecher et al., 2000).

    The Crisis of the Imperial State on a Global Scale

    The crisis of the imperial state at the global level is a manifestation of the contradictionsof the global economy, which in the early 21st century has reached a critical stage in itsdevelopment. The massive flow of US transnational investment throughout the world,especially in Western Europe, Japan, and other advanced capitalist regions, has led to thepost-World War II re-emergence of inter-imperialist rivalry among the major capitalistpowers, while fostering alternate cycles of cooperation and conflict in the scramble for

    the peripheral regions of the global capitalist system Latin America, Asia, Africa, andthe Middle East (Falk, 1999; Halliday, 2001; Hart, 1992).

    With the integration of the economies of Western Europe into the European Union (EU),the postwar emergence of Japan as a powerful economic force, and the more recent rise ofChina to global prominence, the position of the United States of America has declined relativeto both its own postwar supremacy in the 1940s and 1950s and to other advanced capitalisteconomies since that time. Despite the fact that US capital continues to control the biggestshare of overseas markets and accounts for the largest volume of international investments, itshold on the global economy has recently begun to slip in a manner similar to Britains in theearly 20th century. This has, in turn, led the US state to take a more aggressive role in foreign

    policy to protect US transnational interests abroad. Its massive deployment in the MiddleEast in the early 1990s, which led to the Persian Gulf War of 1991, and most recently its inter-vention in Afghanistan in 2001 and invasion of Iraq in 2003, have resulted in great militaryexpenditures and translated into an enormous burden on the working people of the UnitedStates of America, who have come to shoulder the colossal cost of maintaining a globalempire whose vast military machine encompasses the world (Beams, 1998).

    In the current phase of the crisis of the US imperial state, the problems it faces are ofsuch magnitude that they threaten the very existence of the global capitalist system.Internal economic and budgetary problems have been compounded by ever-growing mil-itary spending propped up by armed intervention in the Third World, while a declining

    economic base at home manifested in the housing and banking crisis, and a recessionaryeconomy is further complicated by the global rivalry between the major capitalist powersthat is not always restricted to the economic field, but has political (and even military)implications that are global in magnitude (Beams, 1998; Panitch and Leys, 2003).

    The growing prospects of inter-imperialist rivalry between the major capitalist powers,backed up by their states, are effecting changes in their relations that render the globalpolitical economy an increasingly unstable character. Competition between the UnitedStates of America, Japan, and European imperial states representing the interests oftheir own respective capitalist classes are leading them on a collision course for world

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    supremacy, manifested in struggles for markets, raw materials, and spheres of influence ingeopolitical as well as economic terms, which may in fact lead to a new balance offorces, and consequently alliances that will have serious political implications in globalpower politics. As the continuing economic ascendance of the major capitalist rivals of theUnited States of America take their prominent position in the global economy, pressures

    will build toward the politicization and militarization of these states from within, where theleading class forces bent on dominating the world economy will press forward with the nec-essary political and military corollary of their growing economic power in the global capi-talist system (Falk, 1999; Hart, 1992).

    These developments in global economic and geopolitical shifts in the balance of forcesamong the major capitalist powers will bring to the fore new and yet untested interna-tional alliances for world supremacy and domination in the post-Cold War era. Suchalliances will bring key powers like Russia and China into play in a new and complicated

    relationship that holds the key for the success or failure of the new rising imperial cen-ters that will emerge as the decisive forces in the global economic, political, and militaryequation in the early 21st century (Halliday, 2001).

    The contradictions and conflicts embedded in relations between the rival states of themajor capitalist powers will again surface as an important component of internationalrelations in the years ahead. And these are part and parcel of the restructuring of theinternational division of labor and the transfer of production to overseas territories in line

    with the globalization of capital on a worldwide basis a process that has serious conse-quences for the economies of both the advanced capitalist and less developed capitalistcountries. Economic decline in the imperial centers (manifested in plant closings, unem-

    ployment, and recession) and superexploitation of workers in the Third World (main-tained by repressive regimes) yield the same combined result that has a singular globallogic: the accumulation of transnational profits for the capitalist class of the advancedcapitalist states above all, that of the United States of America, the current center ofglobal capitalism. It is in this context of the changes that are taking place on a world scalethat the imperial state is beginning to confront the current crisis of global capitalism.

    Globalization, Class Struggle, and Social Transformation

    With the spread of capitalism and capitalist class relations around the world, capital haseffected transformations in the class structure of societies with which it has come intocontact. As a result, the class contradictions of global capitalism have become the primarysource of class conflict and class struggle throughout the world (Berberoglu, 2009).

    The development of capitalism over the past 100 years formed and transformedcapitalist society on a global scale. This transformation came about through the restruc-turing of the international division of labor prompted by the export of capital and trans-fer of production to cheap labor areas abroad. This, in turn, led to the intensification ofthe exploitation of labor through expanded production and reproduction of surplus

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    value and profits by further accumulation of capital and the reproduction of capitalistrelations of production on a world scale. A major consequence of this process is theincreased polarization of wealth and income between labor and capital at the nationaland global levels, and growth in numbers of the poor and marginalized segments of thepopulation throughout the world. These and other related contradictions of globalcapitalism define the parameters of neoliberal capitalist globalization and provide us theframework of discussion and debate on the nature and dynamics of globalization in the

    world today (Veltmeyer, 2008).The widening gap between the accumulated wealth of the capitalist class and the

    declining incomes of workers has sharpened the class struggle in a new political direc-tion, which has brought the advanced capitalist state to the center stage of the conflictbetween labor and capital and revealed its ties to the monopolies. This has underminedthe legitimacy of the capitalist state, such that the struggles of the working class and the

    masses in general are becoming directed not merely against capital, but against the stateitself (Beams, 1998). This transformation of the workers struggle from the economic tothe political sphere is bound to set the stage for protracted struggles in the period ahead struggles that would facilitate the development of a much more politicized internationallabor movement. The globalization of capital is thus bound to accelerate the politiciza-tion of the working class and lead to the building of a solid foundation for internationalsolidarity of workers on a world scale that is directed against global capitalism and theadvanced capitalist state on a world scale (Bina and Davis, 2002; Howard, 2005; Stevisand Boswell, 2008).

    The relationship between the owners of the transnational corporations the global

    capitalist class and the imperial state, and the role and functions of this state, includingthe use of military force to advance the interests of the capitalist class, thus reveals theclass nature of the imperial state and the class logic of neoliberal globalization today(Berberoglu, 1987, 2001, 2009; Szymanski, 1981; Warren, 1980). But this logic ismore pervasive and is based on a more fundamental class relation between labor andcapital that now operates on a global level (that is, a relation based on exploitation).Thus, in the age of capitalist globalization, social classes and class struggles are a prod-uct of the logic of the global capitalist system based on the exploitation of labor world-

    wide (Berberoglu, 1994; Petras, 1978).Capitalist expansion on a world scale at this stage of the globalization of capital and

    capitalist production has brought with it the globalization of the production process andthe exploitation of wage-labor on a world scale. With the intensified exploitation of the

    working class at super-low wages in repressive neocolonial societies throughout theworld, the transnational corporations of the leading capitalist countries have come toamass great fortunes that they have used to build up a global empire through the powersof the imperial state, which has not hesitated to use its military force to protect andadvance the interests of capital in every corner of the globe. It is in this context that wesee the coalescence of the interests of the global economy and empire as manifested incontrol of cheap labor, new markets, and vital sources of raw materials, such as oil, and

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    the intervention of the capitalist state to protect these when their continued supply to theimperial center are threatened.

    Lenin, in his book Imperialism, The Highest Stage of Capitalism, pointed out thatcapitalism in its highest and most mature monopoly stage has spread to every corner ofthe world and thus has planted the seeds of its own contradictions everywhere (Lenin,1975 [1917]). It is in this context of the developing worldwide contradictions ofadvanced, monopoly capitalism that Lenin pointed out, [I]mperialism is the eve of thesocial revolution of the proletariat ... on a worldwide scale (Lenin, 1975 [1917]: 640).

    In considering the emerging class struggles throughout the globe, the question thatone now confronts is thus a politicalone. Given what we know of neoliberal globalizationand its class contradictions on a world scale, how will the peoples movements respondto it politically worldwide? What strategy and tactics will be adopted to confront thiscolossal force? It is important to think about these questions concretely, in a practical

    way one that involves careful analysis and organized political action.Understanding the necessity of mobilizing labor and the importance of political

    leadership in this struggle, radical labor organizations have in fact taken steps empha-sizing the importance for the working class to mobilize its ranks and take united actionto wage battle against capitalist globalization (Munck, 2002; Stevis and Boswell, 2008;

    Waterman, 1998).Strikes, demonstrations, and mass protests initiated by workers and other popular

    forces have become frequent in a growing number of countries controlled by the transna-tionals in recent years. Working people are rising up against the local ruling classes, thestate, and the transnational monopolies that have together effected the super-exploitation

    of labor for decades. Various forms of struggle are now under way in many countriesunder the grip of transnational capital (Berberoglu, 2009; Houtart and Polet, 2001;Polet, 2007; Stevis and Boswell, 2008).

    The logic of transnational capitalist expansion on a global scale is such that it leads tothe emergence and development of forces that are in conflict with this expansion. The

    working class has been in the forefront of these forces. Armed insurrection, civil war, andrevolutionary upheavals are all a response to the repression imposed on working peopleby global capitalism and its client states throughout the world. Together, these struggleshave been effective in frustrating the efforts of global capital to expand and dominatethe world, while at the same time building the basis of an international working class

    movement that finally overcomes national, ethnic, cultural, and linguistic boundariesthat artificially separate the workers in their fight against global capitalism. In this sense,labor internationalism (or the political alliance of workers across national boundaries intheir struggle against global capitalism) is increasingly being seen as a political weaponthat would serve as a unifying force in labors frontal attack on capital in the early21st century (Beams, 1998; Fishman, et al. 2005).2

    The solidarity achieved through this process has helped expand the strength of theinternational working class and increased its determination to defeat all vestiges of globalcapitalism throughout the world, and build a new egalitarian social order that advancesthe interests of working people and ultimately of all humanity.

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    Global capitalism today represents a dual, contradictory development whose dialec-tical resolution will be an outcome of its very nature a product of its growth andexpansion across time and space within the confines of a structure that promotes its owndestruction and demise. However, while the process itself is a self-destructing one, it isimportant to understand that the nature of the class struggle that these contradictionsgenerate is such that the critical factor that tips the balance of class forces in favor of the

    working class to win state power is political organization, the building of class alliancesamong the oppressed and exploited classes, the development of strong and theoretically

    well-informed revolutionary leadership that is organically linked to the working class,and a clear understanding of the forces at work in the class struggle, including especiallythe role of the state and its military and police apparatus the focal point of the strug-gle for state power (Berberoglu, 2001, 2007; Knapp and Spector, 1991; Stevis andBoswell, 2008; Szymanski, 1978). The success of the working class and its revolution-

    ary leadership in confronting the power of the capitalist state thus becomes the criticalelement ensuring that, once captured, the state can become an instrument that the

    workers can use to establish their rule and in the process transform society and the stateitself to promote labors interests in line with its vision for a new society free of exploita-tion and oppression, one based on the rule of the working class and the laboring massesin general.

    Conclusion

    In this article, I have outlined the class contradictions of neoliberal globalization/imperialism, the crisis of the global economy and the imperial state, the emergent formsof class struggle, and the prospects for the transformation of global capitalism in the 21stcentury. I have discussed these within the context of the globalization of capital in the20th century and have mapped out the political implications of this process for the futurecourse of development and transformation of capitalism on a global scale.

    Our understanding of the necessity for the transformation of global capitalism,which is political in nature, demands a clear and concise analysis of its contradictionsin late 20th- and early 21st-century form, so that this knowledge can be put to useto facilitate the class struggle in a revolutionary direction. In this context, one will

    want to know not only the extent and depth of global capitalist expansion, but alsoits base of support, its linkage to the major institutions of capitalist society (above allthe state, but also other religious, cultural, and social institutions), the extent of itsideological hegemony and control over mass consciousness, and other aspects ofsocial, economic, political, and ideological domination. Moreover and this is themost important point one must study its weaknesses, its problem areas, its vulner-abilities, its weak links, and the various dimensions of its crisis especially those thataffect its continued reproduction and survival. Armed with this knowledge, one

    would be better equipped to confront capital and the capitalist state in the strugglefor the transformation of global capitalism in this century.

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    Notes

    1 While one consequence of imperialism and neoliberal globalization has been economic contraction

    and an associated class polarization, a more costly and dangerous outcome of this process has beenincreased militarization and intervention abroad, such that the defense of an expanding capitalist

    empire worldwide has come to require an increasing military presence and a permanent interven-

    tionist foreign policy to keep the world economy clear of obstructions that go against the interests of

    the transnational monopolies. However, such aggressive military posture has created (and continues

    to create) major problems for the imperialist state and is increasingly threatening its effectiveness and,

    in the long run, its very existence.

    2 The necessity of the struggle against global capital in an organized political fashion has been empha-

    sized by working class organizations, and this has led to several successful revolutions during the 20th

    century. Throughout this period, working class organizations have emphasized the centrality of inter-

    national working class solidarity (or proletarian internationalism) for any worldwide effort to wage a

    successful battle against global capitalism.

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